Michelle:
Welcome to Ritual Sisters, the podcast where your hosts and fellow travelers, Michelle and Kelly, explore the ways that ritual can help you feel better through the ups and downs of life. So let's take a deep breath, and start this journey together.

Kelly:
Hello, everyone! We are so excited to be back with another episode. Michelle and I have been so looking forward to spending time with this special guest. So I want to spend some time intro-ing her in. Today, we are lucky to meet with Maria Milagros Vazquez, and she is an award-winning keynote speaker, two-time TEDx storyteller, workshop facilitator, mindset transformation life coach, storyteller and author. She uses stories to bring encouragement, education, and love to empower others to get out of their way and break free from any hindering thoughts or beliefs so that they can live amazing lives and leave their unique and positive mark on the world. Maria is here today to talk to us about rewriting stories and going from the ordinary to the extraordinary. Welcome Maria!

Maria:
Thank much! Thank you, Michelle and Kelly. Thank you for having me. So excited to be here! I love talking about rituals.

Kelly:
Yes! Well, you know, with all of our guests, we love by starting with - Maria, if you could tell us a little bit about yourself and also what season of life you're in.

Maria:
Okay, a couple of years ago - I can't not tell stories. A couple of years ago, I was at this event, and they had us do this six word icebreaker. So they said six words, no more, no less. Who are you? Are you kidding me? Six words? Like, I can't even list my descriptors in six words. So what I did was I listed everything that I could and then I realized that they kind of fell into two piles. And so my six words, and this is how I'm gonna describe myself, is I am a mother who dances. And even before I was a mother, I was mothering. Even before I birthed my own child, I was a caretaker, I was a nurturer. I wanted to help guide people, especially young people.

Right, so like this idea of mothering existed before I even had my own child. And then the dancing part is this desire for joy, this desire for movement, this desire for connection to something greater than myself. When I dance, I transcend, I go someplace else. A lot of times people are like, how do you dance with your eyes closed? And I'm like, how do you not?

Michelle:
Yeah.

Maria:
My ancestors are all watching me behind my eyelids. And so it's this opportunity to be witnessed in movement and to be reminded that I have mobility and dance is so many things to me. It's both how I stay resilient and how I became resilient. Right. So it's like, who am I? I am a mother who dances. If that helps or makes any sense.

Michelle:
Yeah, it does - that is a hard exercise. How long did they give you to come up with?

Maria:
It was like 20 minutes. And some people were racking their brains. I was the only person who made a sentence and everybody else listed words. And I was like, see, it's my thing. The story. Even in a sentence, I'm telling a story. So, uh, the other thing, when I think about who I am, and this is more woo woo is - I like to remind myself that I'm this ever evolving spiritual being who came here to have a human experience - and all that that entails. And so then I'm also reminded that everything is temporary, whether it's good, bad, indifferent, or ugly, it's temporary. Take what you can from it, milk it if you can, and then try not to hold on so that we can move into the next adventure, if you will.

And I also like to say I am a creator who came for the purpose of creating. That's how I like to think of myself rather than all the labels that the world or society might put on me, I get to decide what my story is going to be and who I'm going to be. And in terms of the season of life, I was really thinking about this when I saw the question and I don't have an answer because I like to, one of my mantras is honor the cycle that you're in. And when my daughter was a toddler and I was newly divorced and I was working full time, that was a very particular cycle. And then when that cycle ended, I moved into a new cycle. And so I'm in this cycle of, I feel really rooted, really rooted. And it comes from a lot of practice. So I'm in a cycle where I feel really rooted and I have the capacity to rise up and to teach others how to do that from a really practiced experience place. It's not a thing that I've read it in a book somewhere and I'm just sharing information. No, I live this. So that feels really important and powerful - this particular cycle that I'm in is about educating and empowering other people from a very practiced and experienced place. So that's the cycle that I'm in, I guess.

Michelle:
I love that and yeah, making the question your own. I think that's beautiful and very aligned.

Maria:
Thank you.

Audible Laugher

Michelle:
Can you tell us a little bit more about the work that you do and how you got into it? I know you're kind of touching on it a little bit.

Maria:
Yeah, so right now I do keynotes and speaking at events, corporate events, small businesses, nonprofits, conferences. I do workshops under the premise or like the umbrella of personal growth and development. There are three main segments right now. And again, it's like a cycle before the cycle was different. Now the cycle is companies are coming back to understanding that their employees need soft skills because there was a lot of hustle, grind, technical go, go, go. And then they realized we're not doing so well with each other or with our customers. We don't know how to be human. So I'm doing more work on communication and how to build healthy cultures and communities. One of the pillars is burnout and how to prevent burnout for your employees. And then the other pillar of the three that I'm mostly doing is work-life balance, how to create work-life balance for yourself. And that's a more personal thing versus the other two can be infused into the work, right? So, but if you're doing anything that's good for you, it's good for all arenas of your life. So I do a lot of those workshops.

I also do coaching. I originally was focused more on coaching, but now I don't promote my coaching because I get coaching from workshops and from speaking gigs that I do. And, all my slots are full except for one and I kind of like having it open because then I can use that to send emails and do that, whatever. So really my work has three pillars. It's the speaking, the workshops, and the coaching. And then I have two books. I have Super Sparkly Everything. And then I have The Love Journey, which is a guided journal that brings us back to love for ourselves. I'm writing right now the second portion of that, which is Share Love.

So the first love, we start with ourselves because we cannot give what we do not have. And then the second love is like, how do I take this love that I've learned and use that in a healthy, productive way and share that out into the world? And the way that I got started, well, I've always been like, I'm the oldest girl of six kids, which is technically the oldest kid. Cause let's be real. You know what I'm saying? Let's be real.

Audible Laughter

Maria:
The boys are generally treated like, you know, boys will be boys and they don't have to do as much. And girls, unfortunately, are raised to go to school, have the job, take care of the house, help raise the kids. So you grow up pretty quickly as a girl, especially in a family of six, especially with a single mom, who then I became second mom and at times first mom. So I've always lived this life where people would reach out, my cousins, friends, and say, what do you think? Give me your advice.

And I would say to them, I can only give you advice from my perspective and my lens, but it might look different from you. But this is what I would do in my situation. I'm not in your situation. You have to figure out what's best for you kind of thing. And so that has always been a part of who I am in my life, right? And it's always been like, just a norm in my life for people to reach out to me and ask me for advice or ask me for feedback or ask for a resource.

So then I worked all these lovely jobs throughout my life and I was at this one job and I got recruited for a different job. And I said “no” at least a dozen times. Like ladies, I said “no” at least a dozen times and they kept coming. Please come work for us, please come work with us, please come. So finally I was like, you know what? This could be a good idea. I was taking a major pay cut and as a single mother, that's not something to play with. So I said, you know what? I'm gonna trust that if they're harassing me like this, hold on, my spirit just did a whole thing. Cause let me tell you something. Sometimes we think that if other people are persistent, that that means something about them. And like, oh, they're really persistent, that means they really care. Or, oh, they're really persistent, that means that they're really interested. Oh, but what it actually means is they don't know how to hear no and honor boundaries.

Collective Ohhhhhh

So I let them - take me - I allowed the betraying of my own boundary and the multiple times that I knew the answer was no. And I said, well, they're that persistent. They must really care. And I told myself that game because that's what we're taught, especially as women, right? We're taught that - if a man pursues you like that, he must really like you. Even if everything else is screaming, no, we'll play the game. Don't we? Oh child. Anyways, so I agreed and I went to this job and in less than a year, I got fired. And it was the first time I had ever gotten fired in my life. And when I was sitting across this panel of people telling me all the reasons that they were gonna let me go, because it wasn't the best position for me, they were the exact same reasons that they hired me. So I remember saying, wait, wait, wait, these are the reasons that you kept calling me. These are the reasons. And then one of the guys sitting at this table said to me, and I'll never forget this, it is seared into my brain. He said, yeah, but you didn't do it the way we wanted you to.

Okay. And then I went home and I got this email basically saying you're terminated blah, blah, blah, you know, it was so sugar coated and I mean, deliciously manipulative, so delicious. So I went home, I read this email and I thought, oh it's something's wrong with me. Because again, isn't that what we do? We're like, it's me, something's wrong with me. If this is the reason that they hired me and it's the same reasons that they fired me, I'm broken or something or there’s something wrong with me. I was sad and I was depressed and I kind of spiraled a little bit. And then I remembered that about 10 years before that, I had told myself when I climbed out of my depression, I was never going back. So I was like, girlfriend, what we doing? Get out of bed. Let's go. So I climbed my butt out of bed and you know, got myself together. And at that time, I remember reading this book and it had a scripture in it. And it said, the person went to Jesus and asked, like, what's the most important commandment? And Jesus said, the most important is to love God with all of your mind, soul, and heart or something. And then it said, and the second most important, almost as important as the first, is to love others as you love yourself.

And the word “as” was like glowing on the page. And it almost was coming off of the page. And I went, love others as you love yourself. I cannot give what I do not have. And if I don't love myself, I don't love others. And if I don't hold my boundaries, I can't hold my boundaries. If I don't, right? And it was like all the things and it was puzzle pieces coming together. And I sat down and I wrote this workshop and it was called Loving Yourself. And I used that piece and I said, this is what I'm doing. 50 women, if you want to come, great. If not, great. This is what I'm doing. I think we need it. Join me at this place. And it sold out. The event sold out. And these women were feening for permission to love themselves, for permission to be okay with themselves, for permission to appreciate their bodies, for permission. And we had this six hour, I think it was either four or six hours, that first workshop. And it was in 2017, I'll never forget. Six months later, I wrote my book and I was like, oh, this is what I'm doing now.

In between, I had started looking for jobs. And when I was looking for jobs, everybody kept telling me I'm overqualified. And I could feel my spirit calling me to start my own business. And it's terrifying to trust yourself.

Kelly:
It is.

Maria:
You know, especially you have a child. If this was just me, I would sleep on random Joe Schmo's couch. I have a baby. I have to keep a roof over our head. Like I have this feel. It felt terrifying to step into and trust myself knowing I had no financial net - and everything in me - and the universe was like, you wanna be hardheaded? Okay, cool, we're gonna make sure we block every job that you could possibly go for. And every job I went for, they kept saying, you're overqualified, we can't hire you, you're overqualified. And I said, I'll start at the beginning, it's okay. And they're like, no, we're not. One woman in an interview said, I don't know why I'm telling you this, but I would never give you this position because I think in a short amount of time, you would get my job. And I was like, you need to come to one of my workshops.

Audible Laughter

Maria:
I mean, it felt really like that message felt really go do your own thing. Go. And so I did. And that's how I started. And I would love to say that once I stepped in, everything worked out magically and money just flowed in. No, I had 97 part time jobs, especially during the pandemic. I had jobs running errands for the elderly neighbor and they would give me ten dollars, twenty dollars, whatever they could afford. Like whatever jobs I can get my hands on. I would do everything and anything to make ends meet while I built this. And about two years ago, I decided, well, my spirit was like, girl, what we doing? Let's go full time. And I was like, you know, chewing off all my fingernails. And then I said, okay, let's go. What do I have to lose? Right? I know what it is. I grew up really poor. We grew up, we were once homeless. I'm like, I know what that is. And I know I'll never let myself get there again. So let's just go. Let's go. And I did, and it's been great ever since then, but yeah.

Michelle:
Thank you for sharing. I think that will be very helpful for people to hear that journey.

Kelly:
My goodness, Maria. That was so, thank you. That was so powerful!

Maria:
Thank you. Thank you for giving me the space to share it.

Kelly:
Yeah, of course. So kind of the last question of this first part is - Michelle and I are so excited to hear a little bit more about, you know, your relationship with ritual and ceremony.

Maria:
I love rituals! I love rituals. I love ceremonies. Culturally, ceremonies have been a part of our life for, since I could remember, right? And I'm not just talking birthdays and weddings and funerals. I'm talking we would make up reasons to have a gathering and a ceremony. And my grandparents were this interesting fusion of Catholicism, and my grandfather, when he would have way too much to drink, his walls would come down and he would return to this kind of like indigenous practices of his youth. So, but he could only do that when he was intoxicated because then he didn't have to pretend, you know? So that was really yummy. And so it was this interesting fusion of these multiple things. And we would celebrate three kings. We would celebrate. If someone hurt themselves, my grandmother would do a thing where she would like burn a candle for them and say a prayer. And just watching these little things here and there, I thought, that's like a little ritual for that person. That's like, that's that, oh - And so my life, I didn't realize it until I got much older that I am very woo woo and very ritualistic.

I'm talking rituals for full moons, obviously. I'm talking rituals for new moons, duh. I'm talking rituals, right? I'm talking like morning rituals, evening rituals, body rituals, prayer rituals, healing rituals. I start, the women who come to my class, unless they hear this, they don't even know. We start with a ritual and we end with a ritual. Every class, right? We start with a stretch of our body. We allow ourselves to breathe into our bodies and to take up space. And I say these things to them and I say, okay, and before we begin, let's set an intention. How are we gonna move through these next minutes, this next hour? Like, let's be intentional about what we're gonna anchor into. That's a ritual. Don't tell them. But that's a ritual. And then when we end class, we end with a hug. And I always say we're gonna come back to hugging. First, make a big X. And this is again, your permission to take up space. An X marks the spot where the magic happens. And then we're gonna give ourselves a big hug because we deserve our love. Yes. And then we give ourselves a high five. And on the way out the door, I have them high five me and I always remind them, don't wait till the end. Like if you just completed a set that felt really challenging, give yourself a high five in that moment. Let's practice ritualizing and celebrating the minutia of our lives. We tend to wait for the big thing and forget the thousands of steps that got us there. And that's why when we get there, it feels like it fizzles out and we're just looking for the next high.

If we were better practiced at ritualizing celebration along the way and honoring the little steps that we do along the way, that big thing would feel like a culmination that then we'd be excited about what's coming next or recognize when we need a break, not just chasing a high, right? So like there's rituals in everything that I do. I did a ritual when I decided to go gray. I've been going gray since I was 15. I started dyeing my hair when I was 18 and then about two years ago it started breaking from the dye. And with curls, you know, like the curlier the hair, it's actually more fragile. So the curls were kind of getting wrinkly, like wringly. I don't know the word for that. They were not curling, okay? They were looking sad and scraggly. So I said, okay, I'm gonna go gray. And so when I went gray, I did a full ritual, like a ceremony for myself. I dressed in all gray, I burned candles, and I said to myself and my body, thank you for my hair, thank you for these beautiful curls, thank you for this opportunity to transition, right?

For me, these rituals, ceremonies, these practices give me an opportunity to thank what was, to accept what is and to honor what is coming. And so even that, and recently we had a ceremony in my family, a sibling reached out and said, this is what's going on. It's a transitional pivotal period. Would you want to do a ritual? Oh, girl, say less. She's talking to me. I'm already collecting candles and sage. I'm on my way, right? So it’s such a big part of who I am because they allow me to create markers throughout my day that anchor me and markers throughout my life that remind me.

That's good. That's a tweetable.

Kelly:
Ohhhhh I was gonna say - we definitely will quote you on that.

Maria:
Yeah. That's good. Girl, I love me some rituals and ceremonies.

Michelle:
I think it's good that that permission to celebrate the small pieces I think is and or not necessarily celebrate but just honor, mark.

Maria:
Yeah, and you can like you loaded the dishwasher give a little shoulder shimmy.

Audible Laughter

Maria:
Look here's the truth, right these things have to get done and we can either do them begrudgingly - which just creates more cortisol, more stress and then increases our chances of getting illnesses that are really harmful - or we say to ourselves I have to load the dishwasher. So I'm gonna go ahead and load it and when I do a Hey, hey, hey.

And my daughter will walk into the room and I'm doing a little celebrating. She already knows What are we celebrating? I just did the dishes and she's like, okay, and we do a little dance for each other. We high-five, we keep it moving. She'll come out of the laundry room and she's doing a little and I said, are we celebrating? And she's like I just moved the clothes from the washer to the dryer. Yeah, you did! And then it doesn't feel like this exhausting never-ending chore list, it feels like this opportunity to be intentional about my life and to bring in more play, right? So it's the little things, those little kind of rituals that really are helpful. Well, at least for this crazy person. I told you, I am weirdddddd!

Michelle:
Yeah.

Alright, you talk a lot about storytelling and being a storyteller. So can you share a little bit more about what is the significance of storytelling for you and how that helps navigate life?

Maria:
Yes, please. Okay. Yeah. Let me, let me sit up for this. So one of the things that I love to say, and it's one of my favorite quotes to say, and it's my own quote. Am I quoting myself? Yes, I am. And it is the most powerful things we have are the stories we tell ourselves about who we are, what that means and what we are capable and deserving of. That is one of my favorite quotes because when I was younger, and I grew up in the Bronx, we were very poor, there was a lot of abuse in my childhood. You name a type of abuse, I could check that box. When I got older and I did the adverse childhood experiences, tasks like the ACE, I scored all, like all of them. I checked everything.

I statistically should not be functional, sane, happy. And yet, here I am. And I honestly believe it is because I took ownership of my stories, and I decided what I was going to do with them to create for myself a life that I would feel good about. When I was in middle school, we had a history teacher, and this was in the Bronx. He would drive in from Connecticut, and every day he would complain about his drive to every class. We would talk amongst ourselves, and it wasn't just the top morning class. Every class, he would let us know that he had to leave his nice house with his nice family and his nice community, and drive in his nice car to come to the ghetto to teach us ungrateful kids who were probably gonna end up on drugs, in jail, or both. This is what he would tell us. This is how he would start. This was a history teacher. And this is how he would start class. And what happens is, this is important. What happens is if you hear stories about who you are and you don't have a backbone or a backstory to push against that, you will believe it and then you will become it. So not only was he the only, first of all, white man that I had interaction with, and we were taught that white men knew better than us. They were leaders, they were CEOs, they were presidents. So he was the only white man that I knew and he would come into our neighborhood and tell us that he was doing us a favor and it was for nothing because we were nothing. You start to believe that story when you hear it over and over and over again. This was the history teacher who was literally writing a story to force us to repeat our history.

Fast forward, we ended up moving to Massachusetts. And when we're living in Massachusetts, my first day of school here in Massachusetts, my first class was a literature class. And I walk into that literature class, this is now five years later. Six years later, I walk into that literature class. And when I walked in, the teacher had us all sit down and she said, the first thing she said, I'll never forget, Ms. Lawrence from Monty Tech, Fitchburg, Massachusetts. I'll never forget her. She said, literature is the stories that we decide to tell. You can change your story at any time. So the first thing we're gonna do is everybody's gonna write their obituary and you're going to then reverse engineer your life. It hurt my head. I said, wait, wait, I don't understand. I don't understand. Cause all these years we have been told that we are nothing, we are useless. And that became my story. I believed that. And now you're telling me, that I get to write my story? That I get to decide where I want, what? It was so confusing. So she had us write our obituaries and then, you know, we'd do the first draft and she'd say, you can do better than this. You can go deeper, you can say, and I remember because I still have it, it is laminated, it's in a box with all my old school writings. She laminated them the final copy and they're handwritten. Cause you know, girl, I'm so old, we did not have typewriters or computers. That was not a thing. Everything was handwritten, right?

The first line says, Maria was a happy woman who helped other people heal. This was laminated and buried. And then a couple years ago when we were moving here, I was going through old bins and like purging whatever we don't need. I'm not bringing to the new place, like purging. I find this bin, I'm flipping through it. I'm like, oh my gosh, look at all this writing from when I was in high school. I pull out this thing. I'm bawling. It is written like I'm living this. And I've realized this is the power of the stories we tell ourselves.

What's also really beautiful is that science and data has now realized, like, turns out the brain is plastic, right? It has plasticity. It can change. And because if we change our stories and we repeat and rehearse the new story, we will change our brain. We change the chemistry in our brain. We change how we perceive the world. We change what we attract visually, audibly, right? We change how we attract things to us. And then we become in our cells different. So when I talk about storytelling, yes, it's very tribal, it's very woowoo, it's very kumbaya, let's hold hands, but it's also very scientifically based that the stories that we tell ourselves truly do impact the lives that we create for ourselves. This is why it's so important that we pay attention to the stories that we tell. And if we need to, we hold a ceremony to burn an old story and to create a new one. Right? So yummy.

Kelly:
Wow, and Maria, what was that teacher's name? I'm really struck by-

Maria:
Miss Lawrence was her name. And you know, I used to do this thing where I wouldn't say the history teacher's name because you don't want to, you don't want to say bad things about people and you want, but then I realized like, why are we always protecting the predator? His name was Mr. Scheib. Okay. He was 147 in the Bronx. He was awful. And Miss Lawrence, who taught at Monty Tech in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, man, Miss Lawrence was one of my favorite teachers. Yeah. She was.

And she would believe in you through eye contact, you know, like in a way that you knew she was, she was telling you the truth. She wasn't just, you know how some people will say a nice thing and you feel disconnected from the words. She would say it with her eyeballs, like from her soul. So you knew if Ms. Lawrence said, I believe in you and you can do better. I can do better. I believe in myself. Right? Miss Lawrence was that. She's extraordinary. She was an extraordinary teacher. Yeah. So yeah, stories. Man, stories we tell ourselves.

Kelly:
Well, Maria, our next question, you know, knowing this is gonna air around the springtime and spring is, you know, a time of new beginnings. We were curious. Yeah. What you would say about, you know, what fresh starts have been in your life? What fresh starts feel really meaningful?

Maria:
Girl, we don't have enough time.

Audible Laughter

So many fresh starts! Truly, so many fresh starts. The first one that popped into my head funny enough was my divorce was a fresh start. Lord, that was a first start. Moving into this home was a fresh start. The first time I bought a car was a first, you know, like everything and anything, again, because I practice ritual so regularly, everything feels anew.

I don't wait for the first of a month or the first of a year. I wait for the first of a minute. If I make a decision that something needs to change, I'm not gonna postpone it. If I feel it strongly enough, I'm just gonna be about it. And then that becomes a fresh start, right? And there's also something really delicious about thinking about fresh starts and spring. I am not a gardener, but man, I do know a lot about planting and seeds because I use this analogy a lot and because I talk a lot about rooting in to rise up. And I even said that at the beginning, I feel really rooted to rise up. And there are some flowers that you can plant those seeds and it takes them a season to grow and they last for a season or two and then they die. And it looks like there is nothing there. And then the next time spring comes around, that seed is like, I'm back. Hey honey, how you doing? Right?

Whereas other plants stay there and wither and suffer, these are like, we'll see you when it's nice out. And then they come back. So it's like, is it a fresh start or is it a transformation? Is it a rejuvenation? Sometimes, yes, it is absolutely fresh. And sometimes it is taking all of the stuff that I have experienced and been through and all of the magic and all the lessons and all of the wonder, putting that in my pocket or my backpack, depending on how much it is, and then taking that into this new era, this new cycle, this new space, right? Because this idea of abandoning what was just because it wasn't always so pretty feels dishonorable to me. Like that is part of my life. I can't ignore those pieces. I need to take anything good, any sparkle, anything that I've learned from all those, I need to take that with me. And then in doing that, I'm also healing those parts of myself. Right? And so then I move into this new space and that is a fresh start or it's a transmutation or it's alchemy. Right? You know, it's like. Yeah. Yeah.

And this came to my head and I have to figure out how to make it segue and make sense. But I was literally talking to this woman and she was talking about, she's experiencing a lot of things about in the like perimenopause. And she kept saying, my body's betraying me, my body's betraying me. So I let her finish. And while she's talking, my spirit is screaming at me. Like it is not a betrayal. It is not a betrayal. So I let her finish and I said, that sounds really frustrating. You I can understand that that would be really hard and to have those changes seem like they came along all of a sudden. Yes, that can feel like a lot validating all that. And I cannot get on board with this idea that your body is betraying you.

Kelly:
Yeah.

Maria:
This has been happening to women since women. And I think we have been trained to believe, because we have not been taught about the transitions, because we have not been given the room nor the knowledge to let them do what they do. This is a natural process. And because we have been taught or not been taught about them, it feels like a betrayal, but it's not. This is a transition. This is your body doing what it's gonna do. Now that we have more knowledge, we have more awareness, it is our responsibility to seek that out so that we can create the best path so that it doesn't feel like I need to get through this to get to a fresh start.

I need to honor this and figure out how to carry myself through this transition in the most sane way because it's temporary and on the other side of this cycle is yet another cycle, right? And then there's a, how do I, rather than say I'm being betrayed, how dare I? The very thing that has carried me through life, my whole life, I'm gonna call it a betrayal because it's in transition? That is normal. We don't say when a toddler is becoming a child, oh, the body's betraying the toddler.

No, you know, but we do that to ourselves, man. And this is again, it goes back to the stories that we tell ourselves. It's not a betrayal. It's a transition. And so it's my responsibility to learn about that transition so I can do it with a little more ease and a little less murder, you know?

Kelly:
I love Maria, how you linked the stories you're telling yourself with the fresh starts. And I think for listeners that is so powerful for them to take time and think about, yeah, what stories are they telling themselves about maybe an ending they've experienced recently or thinking about a fresh start, new beginning. I know that's really been in the collective. So yeah, that's really juicy.

Michelle:
Yeah, I like the perspective of the first thing that we think about with fresh starts is these big moments, but then we can always bring it back to little moments. And like, what does a fresh start even mean? Is it part of this cycle? Is it a quieting? Is it a rebirth? It can look so many different ways. That's really beautiful.

Maria:
Yeah, I think about this woman that we know recently is getting divorced and so she cut her hair and she purged her closet and she's like, fresh start. And I'm like, could also, here's just like, yes and, yes and, you could also get into the shower and while you're in the shower, honor the fact that your body accepted this man and held space for this man. And now that's no longer going to happen and just thank your body and that you could step out of the shower. And that could also be a fresh start. Right? Like, yes, it could be all these things, but it could also be this work. And just, I'm gonna take a shower, just me and my naked body. And I'm just gonna be with my body, which held everything. Our bodies, you know, the body keeps the score. It held everything. And now my body has to do something completely different without this person here.

Okay, and then I'm step out of the shower and go, let's see what this new cycle has for us. Let's see how I can continue to honor myself in this new cycle. That could also be a fresh start, like a shower, you know?

Kelly:
Michelle knows I love my showers and even today, I use the scrub and I ended up like circling the scrub on my skin, which I never do. Normally I just blah, blah. But the circling, I don't know, it felt very healing. So yes, shower time.

Maria:
Yes. Yes!

Audible Giggles

And like sometimes that's all you need. You take a nap because you're feeling kind of funky and then you get up from the nap. Fresh start!

Kelly:
Thank you, naps!!

Maria:
Yes. Yes.

Michelle:
We've gotten into it already a little bit, but any specific rituals that you have around shifting the narrative, changing our stories.

Maria:
Obviously.

Audible Laughter

Yes. Really, there are two things that I think of right off the bat because I don't want to overwhelm people. But the first one is actually sitting down and writing the story that you believe to be true about yourself in your life. Write it down. Put it on paper. Something really beautiful and magical happens. And you ladies know, you’re therapists, when you write it down, it almost gets it out of you. So then it’s not a thing that you can ruminate on the same way because it's now separate from you, right?

Kelly:
Wait, Maria, can you tell me again, what are we writing down?

Maria:
The old story. Who do you believe yourself to be in this moment? What is the old story? What is the weight of the things that you are carrying? I'm not pretty enough. I'm not good enough. I'm not smart enough. Whatever it is, right? What is that old story? And I always recommend that people write it on paper that's not in a bound book because you really should have a ceremony around destroying that. But before you destroy that, in a bound journal or book, take that story word for word, line for line rather, not word for word. And if the first line is, I'm not good enough, you write on the other page, what is the story that you want to be real for yourself? I am enough. I am enough as I am and as I evolve. I am the only one of me that ever has been, ever is and ever will be. I am a sacred and divine being. I will come to learn and know that to be my truth.

Right? And you take each of these lines and you write this new thing. And then, when you have this new story, you hold a ritual for this old story. It didn't come out of nowhere. You were taught by family, you were taught by society, and at some point it probably thought it was protecting you. Right? And so we released that story with love, with kindness. I know you thought you were protecting me. If I didn't think I was too much, would keep me in my space, right? I would stay in my lane and my lane is safe. That's what we do to ourselves a lot and we think we're protecting ourselves. So then we do a ritual. Some people like to shred it and bury it with flowers or seeds and then it grows into something beautiful. I like to burn stuff. I love to burn things!
Kelly:
Yes! Oh my gosh, we love burning stuff too!

Maria:
I love burning stuff. I’m like, take it Universe! I like to mix in some like mojo bag stuff, you know? I put a little sandwich in there. I put a little spices in there. Make it happen. So I love burning stuff. And if you do burn, please do it in a well ventilated outdoor area. Just saying. So burn it. Do what you have to do. Have a ritual. Some people do it by themselves. Some people do it with their girlfriends or with other people. And it becomes a collective burning.

Right? I have done a group ceremony like this where all the women read their stories, cried, supported, held each other, and then burned them. And they said, when they burn them, it feels like such an exhale, letting it go. And then go around again and read the new story. And almost using the power of our words, casting spells, putting it into the universe, saying those prayers, declaring it out loud. And then those stories, you've got to come in contact with those stories at least once a day. You gotta read that story at least once a day to help you reprogram your brain. Because the ritual doesn't magically make the old story go away, right? That's not how that works.

Audible Laughter

What it does is it creates a marker in time saying I have definitively decided that that is not going to be my story anymore. Well, what do you have to support that decision? I have this new story. So when the old story pops up, because it will, because it's well practiced, you turn to and practice the new story even when you don't feel like it. You do. And then that practice, because what we practice we become, and what we practice we become successful at. So we practice the new story. That for me is such a delicious ceremony and ritual. And then the other part of that is writing affirmations and doing them every morning, every night while you're in the shower. One of my coaching clients laminated her affirmations and taped them to the inside of her shower. And she's like, what better place to read affirmations than when I am naked and vulnerable. And she has them listed and posted on her wall and she took a picture and sent it to me and I was like, this feels like TMI, but also like…

Audible Laughter

And her husband one day we're on our zoom and he pops his head in and he's like, Hey, Maria, listen, I've been doing her affirmations and I feel great.

Audible Laughter

Kelly:
Yes. The ripples. Yes!

Maria:
Yes. And the other, so write the story and then create for yourself some affirmations and just really start drilling those home. There's so much data in science around the power of affirmations and these positive thoughts. And they are as much as they're like scientifically backed, they're also rituals, right? There are ways for us to come back to honoring and taking care of ourselves in soft ways that help guide and change our story without beating up on ourselves. I've been there, did that. I don't want to beat up on myself. I don't want to be unkind to passive versions of myself. She was always doing the best she could with what she knew how. And now when I know better, I do better, right? Maya Angelou. So like when you know better, you do better. And so that's my two things. One, write the old story, have a ritual, create the new story. And then the second, have affirmations, do them every day, all the time, as much as possible.

I also would recommend - I do it, I have my clients do it. They think it's really weird at first, but then they can't not do it is record, create an audio note for yourself and record yourself reading your own affirmations and play it back for yourself while you're driving in the car.

Kelly:
That’s such a good idea.

Maria:
It's you, in your voice, telling yourself how amazing yourself is. That's not proper English, but you know what I'm saying.

Michelle:
Yes.

Maria:
There's so much power in hearing your own voice tell you how amazing you are.

Kelly:
Okay Michelle, I need you to hold me capable to do both of these rituals.

Michelle:
We’re gonna do them. We're doing like a Chinese New Year fire in a couple of weeks. Let's do it then! Let’s burn some stuff!

Kelly:
Maria, we’ll update you on how it goes.

Maria:
Let’s burn some stuff! I love it.

Michelle:
We have to mention this before we, it took a while to navigate to this phone, to the zoom call. But before we got on, we remarked on your fabulous earrings.

Kelly:
Yes - The sparkles.

Michelle:
Yes. And you kind of mentioned that as a ritual. So, yeah, can you share a little bit more about rituals for navigating change? Like you were talking about, this is a really hard time in the world and adding a little sparkle to your life is very important. Can you speak more to that?

Maria:
Yeah, thank you for asking. So, yes, this is a really hard time and they are intentionally flooding us to overwhelm us, right? And like it has been said, you know, they don't hold back punches and they don't keep secrets. So they have said like the goal is to flood you because then the more that you're flooded, the less you're capable of standing up and fighting.

And so this is why for me, I'm so thankful that the cycle that I'm in is that I'm so well rooted. It was almost as if my spirit knew better than I did. She always does. And she had told me two years ago, let's start getting really rooted because a storm is coming and we might lose a few branches. We might lose a few leaves, but we will not be broken or uprooted. And when we think about trees, they connect to each other through their roots. And the further down and wide their roots go, the more sustainable they are as a tree, right? So again, you might lose branches, you might lose leaves, but you're not going anywhere and you will grow those things back. So when we think about the roots, what are the roots that keep us resilient, that keep us stable? It is rituals that for me, it's in the minutia. I talk about the minutia of my life all the time because we tend to just kind of skim over it and life is built in the minutia.

Life is not the big moments. It's the little teeny tiny moments that led to the big moment, right? It's the little things that I do every day that either solidify my character or don't. It is the decisions that I'm making and the way that I'm thinking when I'm by myself and with other people. So that goes back to the story that I tell myself. That goes back to my affirmations. When I'm now in quiet time, if there's no music, there's no noise, which is rare, because I love music. But if I am in quiet time, my default is affirmations. From years of doing affirmations, my default is to go right back to affirmations. And the first affirmation, as soon as it gets quiet and my spirit gets settled and everything's calm, it's like, I am enough. I am capable. I am intelligent. I am creative. I can overcome and weather any storm that comes my way. Again, I just know these because they have been so well-rooted.

And so that's one, is that making sure that we're rooting in. The second part of that for me in terms of rooting is making sure that I have healthy connections. I have people that I know if something happens or if I'm feeling some kind of way and I need to work through it, there are people in my life that I can reach out to and make those connections so that I remember, because we're not alone. We're not alone in our experiences. We're not alone on the planet. And we tend to forget that. And we, especially Americans, when we get sad, when we get depressed, we isolate, which is the worst thing you can do, right? So instead, I feel that and I go, well, I need to reach out. And I will reach for the phone and call my sister. And then the phone's ringing. I'm like, damn it, I didn't want to call her, but I can't not not because I'm practiced, right? Whatever we practice will kick in when we need it, which is why we have to practice all the time. I am working from home today. I'm not going anywhere. Did I put on perfume? Yes, nobody can smell me.

Audible Laughter

Maria:
It makes me feel good, right? I love purple. It's my favorite color. I'm like, I need a purple sweater. I need purple sparkly earrings. I'm going to freshen my curls. I'm going to put a little mascara on. Oh my gosh, I'm ready. For what? For the cats? You know what I mean? But it makes me feel good. So like, what are the small things, the minutia? What are the things we're saying to ourselves? Who are the people we're connecting with? What are the things that we're doing? And then, of course, I always always, always, I can't say this enough. When you have five minutes, three minutes, two minutes, move your body. Move your body.

Kelly:
So important.

Maria:
It's so important. Our bodies keep the score. We talked about that. When we walk into a room and we know the room is unsafe, our bodies feel it before we can even logically explain it. When we walk in and we get excited about something, our bodies feel it before we can call it excitement. Our bodies know.

And yet we disconnect from the relationship with our bodies. No, we need to have a space that we can transmute and move that energy through us. I hear something that happened in the world and the first thing that I want to do is start dancing. That sounds bananas, but like I said, it is not just how I stay resilient, it is how I became resilient. It's through these little rituals, these little practices that keep us rooted so that we can continue to rise up. Because right now, man. We need to be collectively rising. We need to be collectively rising. And some people can rise like oak trees and some people, it's a sprout. You do give what you can give, do what you can't, because that sprout is still cleaning the air. That sprout is still doing its job, right? So whatever, but we cannot do that unless we are rooted. So it is so important that we create rituals that root us. Little mascara, little sparkly, little dance, dance. You know, drink lots of water.

Kelly:
I love that it came back to dance. I am the mother who dances.

Maria:
I am a mother who dances. Yeah. There's not a day that goes by that I don't dance. I can't remember a day. When my grandfather passed away, I remember after I heard it, I could not not dance. And I'm like crying and dancing. And then when my grandmother passed, same thing. I remember I got the call, I'd just seen her the day before and the next day I got the call that she had passed. And the first thing I went is put on, I put on a record, a record of Marc Anthony, which was her favorite. And I just started dancing while I was crying. Like I would be doing myself a disservice if I, me personally, this is mine, is if I didn't move it through my body as quickly as I could, because we're not designed to hold all of that. We're not. So yes to dance. Yes.

Kelly:
Oh, I'm getting choked up over this, beautiful.

Michelle:
Yes. Well, thank you so much for having this conversation with us. This has been so incredible and we are excited to continue the conversation a little bit for the Patreon listeners.

Maria:
Before you get to those rapid questions, just want to say, when the email came up, and I told this to Kelly, when the email came up, the request for being on the podcast, I'm like, ritual sisters, are they in my journal??

Audible Laughter

Michelle:
I know!

Maria:
How do they know? Like everything about me is ritual, right? And when I was talking to Kelly, I said, what was it that made you want to reach out? And it was a video, the TED Talk. And I'm like, yeah, but that wasn't it. There was something else. I think the universe was like, y'all don't even know.

Michelle:
Yeah, I just felt this. I was like, she is a ritual sister. I just feel it.

Maria:
That I am. That I am. But thank you for having me. Thank you for inviting me to have this delicious talk. I love talking about these things and just thank you for the space for us to be able to do this and hopefully help somebody find a little more room to heal, you know?

Kelly:
Yeah, absolutely.

Michelle:
Well, ritual fam, wherever you're at, whatever you're doing, have a magical time. Okay.

Michelle & Kelly:
Bye!

Maria:
Bye bye!